Viva Voce
by dragonmactir
Summary: Juliet gives the boys a very important pop quiz they never saw coming. LASSIET.


**Disclaimer: **I don't own _Psych_ or any of its related characters. This is just for my own enjoyment and the potential enjoyment of other Psych-Os like me, and no monetary gain was expected or received.

**Rating: **T

**Spoilers: **None of note, though this would take place sometime after the events of "Santabarbaratown."LASSIET, and Marlowe doesn't exist.

**A/N: **The ending is, I suppose, a bit too buttoned for an admittedly overlong one-shot, but it had to end somewhere. May be a sequel in this, eventually.

* * *

**Viva Voce**

_Let still the woman take_

_An elder than herself: so wears she to him,_

_So sways she level in her husband's heart,_

_For, boy, however we do praise ourselves,_

_Our fancies are most giddy and unfirm,_

_More longing, wavering, sooner lost and worn,_

_Than women's are._

- William Shakespeare

Juliet O'Hara never considered herself the scholarly type, bookish and obsessed with academics, though of course she'd always done well in school, particularly once she'd set her sights on becoming a detective. Her grades were more dependant upon her determination and sheer grit than upon a natural aptitude or predilection for coursework, at least that was the way she preferred to think of it, and so she existed secure in her self-perception of a strong-minded, intelligent, but most importantly _driven_ woman unsaddled with the drawbacks attendant upon being perceived as a bluestocking brainiac, always for some indeterminable reason far worse than being a brainiac _man_. And in an under-layer of herself she was comfortably aware that she at least possessed the potential for something approaching genius intellect, though she'd never inquired as to the actual results of the Wexler's she'd been given in the seventh grade, satisfied with the solid fact that it had landed her in the accelerated learning program. Brilliance, on a girl, was comfortable only when the external and internal matched as closely as possible, and fortunately she believed she was pretty enough to balance out her brains quite well. It never more than peripherally occurred to her to wonder whether this very perception of herself was colored by sexism.

As she contemplated the terrifying morass of double-fudge chocolate mango pineapple cupcake before her, she wondered whether she'd completely overestimated her intelligence from the start. She was not fond of the combination of fruit and chocolate, and even something as simple as a chocolate covered cherry was revolting to her palette to the point of stimulating the gag reflex. She had not ordered the cupcake. _Her boyfriend _had ordered it for her. She wondered at what point exactly she'd lost enough of her self-respect to allow him to so completely overrule her, and even though it was a relatively minor matter she felt a rush of true rage at him as he sat blithely oblivious beside her in the pretentious little pastry shop, scarfing down his own nightmare concoction of fruit and fudge.

Opposite Shawn Spencer, physically as well as in less literal ways, sat her partner, Carlton Lassiter, a man less intelligent, perhaps, than oh-so-brilliant Shawn but far and away wiser. His sharp icy eyes saw at a glance was the clever psychic's eyes did not, and without a word he traded out her plate for his own, sacrificing his delicious wild blueberry muffin for the double-chocolate grotesquery, which he choked down with manful determination even though each bite cost him obvious effort and the expression on his face as the cloying sweetness hit his tongue was similar to what she imagined water boarding might make a man look. The heat of anger in Juliet's heart cooled at the chivalrous gesture, and she favored him with a look of mute gratitude as she bit into the soft homely warmth of the less exotic but considerably more appealing cake. The blueberries struck her tongue as welcome bursts of passion in the comfortable warm vanilla flavor of a longtime romance, sedate but perfect in its sweetness. She spared barely half an ear for the conversation of the three men she sat with despite the fact that most of it, aside from Carlton's not-infrequent growls to bring Shawn back to point, was directly relating to a perplexing case she and her partner were working in conjunction with Psych, preferring for the moment to lose herself in thought and food, the two being momentarily intertwined in her mind.

Carlton was like this blueberry muffin, she decided at last, although only deep below the surface where he didn't like to let anyone see. Soft and sweet and warm as a hearth, and if he seemed bland and commonplace to the epicurean it was only because their palettes had been battered senseless with the assault of flavor that passed for _haute cuisine _or the ineptitude of the unskilled baker. Carlton, like the muffin, had the flavor of expertise. Shawn, on the other hand…well, Shawn was more like the cupcake, a cacophony of overindulgence pandering to those dulled by the gaudy bitterness of modern flavor, the gustatory equivalent of the crass and uncultured _nouveau riche_. Carlton was steak and potatoes, Shawn was a Taco Bell chicken enchilada. Carlton was coming home on a cold winter's day to find a rich and hearty beef stew piping hot and waiting for you, while Shawn was going hungry all day before a big date only to discover that the main entrée was three peas and a thin slice of undercooked salmon arranged on a plate the size of a trashcan lid, with a drizzle of cream sauce on top. She wondered exactly why she'd decided to starve herself on the fare Shawn represented when there was a clear depiction of the sort of meals she _ought_ to be eating in close proximity to her every day.

Shawn wasn't all bad, and Lord knew there was certainly a time and a place where cheap and quick or expensive and over-demanding appealed to her, but now that she was being honest with herself, did she really want to eat like that every day? Particularly when she considered the fact that while he frequently struck the senses as an over-priced gourmet dinner, over-flavored and under-satisfying, he never once opted to take her on a date to any place more upscale than Dave and Buster's, barring that one ill-fated weekend on Gus's credit card where her desires were treated as trivial up until the fulfillment of those desires enabled Shawn to get around her "no work" prohibition. She remembered his response to her half-fanciful suggestion of a hot air balloon ride and felt a resurgence of her anger. Maybe she hadn't _really_ expected him to shell out for the adventure (though he'd been happy enough to do it when it meant he could tail a suspect) but she could have hoped he'd offer a better compromise than an inflatable orca in the hotel pool.

Carlton had never asked why she'd forgiven Shawn for the casual hurts he'd inflicted upon her that weekend, being too conscious of how far over the line he'd stepped when he gave her that polygraph examination and trying too hard to overcome his objections to the relationship in order to keep their damaged partnership - and, more importantly perhaps, that all-too fragile _friendship_ they'd developed over six years of close quarters - but his eyes, more ingenuous than he would ever want to know, had _looked_ the question at her more than once, and she never had any clear answer for them. The only half-assed answer she could give _herself_ was that love took work, and that the best things never came easily - essentially the same thing she'd told Shawn that night at the drive-in after the Yang incident with Madeline, but maybe she'd been fooling herself to think that Shawn represented one of those things worth working for. He'd snowed her under with bullshit, the way he did everyone. Well, _nearly_ everyone. Carlton remained resolutely undrifted and undeceived, and perhaps that was why he'd taken so much offense when he discovered that Juliet had withheld knowledge of her relationship from him. The quick smile and charming line of fast-talking _bonhomie_ would never work on him, likely never would have even if his and the psychic's first encounter hadn't been so overtly hostile.

It was then and there, with the flavor of blueberries on her tongue, that Juliet decided to set a test for both men, a verbal examination that, she hoped, one would pass while the other failed. It would take a degree of preparation in order for it to work, because both men were excellent detectives and both knew her well enough to sense when she was lying outright. She made a rough outline of the plan in her head while they talked and began to put it into action immediately upon her return to the office, hinging upon a private consultation with Chief Vick. The whole of her preparations culminated several days later with a clandestine trip to the meeting Vick had set up for her with the Chief of Police in Palo Alto, who was more than a little confused but vastly entertained by her humble requests. Her return to Santa Barbara signaled Zero Hour, and she took a moment to calm herself before logging into her official email account at her desk to very publicly receive a lucrative job offer from the Palo Alto PD at a crucial moment when both Shawn and Carlton were present.

Except for high school productions of _Oliver! _and _Brigadoon_, she'd never really done any acting before, but she was note-perfect when she clapped a disbelieving hand to her mouth and let her eyes triple-scan the brief official letter with just enough obviousness to capture both men's attention and draw them to her desk.

"What's shakin', Jules?" Shawn asked. Carlton said nothing out loud, but a quick glance at his face showed the question in those ever-direct baby blues.

She turned her monitor so they could see it and flapped a hand at it, indicating that she was rendered temporarily speechless and they should read for themselves. In brief, the letter informed her that after extensive consultation with Chief Vick, Palo Alto had decided to offer her the position of Head Detective in their main precinct, a tremendous (and, admittedly, rather unlikely) honor for an officer of her relatively tender experience, and a huge boost up the career ladder that wasn't likely to open up in Santa Barbara any time soon, dependant as it was upon Carlton leaving or for some reason losing his position, neither eventuality seeming particularly likely.

Carlton's eyes scanned the brief electronic epistle once and he stepped back, his expression an almost unreadable _mélange_ of shock, dismay, and pride. Shawn, on the other hand, immediately launched into an almost unintelligible recitation of all the reasons why she must, of course, turn down the offer, which mostly boiled down to the fact that Palo Alto was too far away and she couldn't leave him, which she took to mean _he_ couldn't leave Gus. Part one of the exam was well underway, and as she'd planned from the start she left them both then, without a word to either of them, escaping to the privacy of Chief Vick's office apparently to consult but actually to share a thumb's up and a surreptitious high-five behind the drawn blinds with her willing co-conspirator and allow the men to soak in this sudden and unexpected turn of events. She took the rest of the day off, ostensibly to collect her scattered thoughts and make those big, important decisions the letter begged her to make, and because she was dealing with professional detectives and had not a hope in the world that one of them, at least, would not spy on her (and no prizes for guessing which was most likely to do so), she spent the rest of the day doing exactly that, although the scattered thoughts and big decisions were about entirely different topics than professional promotion. She took a long walk on East Beach, on the bright and crowded boardwalk, down the streets she'd patrolled endlessly as a rookie detective under the tutelage of one man and the near-constant barrage of sexual (and, in retrospect, fairly offensive) come-ons of the other, and if her expression grew wistful at times it only served to convince any not-so-casual observers she might have that she was considering her choices deeply, as she was even if those choices were ones she'd made in the past rather than those she'd make in the future. She did not return any of the myriad voicemails and texts on her phone that day, and did not speak to either man until late on the afternoon of the next.

She put Shawn to the test first, since the results of his _viva voce _would be far more immediate in nature than Carlton's. She managed to convince him to meet her at East Beach, alone, and for a wonder when he showed up he was sans Gus, though Juliet strongly suspected (her suspicions strengthened by having overheard the man talking about his intentions before springing her trap on Shawn and Lassiter the day before) that it was more because Gus was catching up on his pharmaceutical sales route than because Shawn understood that it was important for him to honor her request for privacy. He parked his Norton next to her lime green Beetle and walked in his usual jaunty manner to where she sat with her back to the blue Pacific, waiting for him.

"Jules!" He leaned in to kiss her cheek, which she allowed because it was only a kiss on the cheek. If he'd attempted anything more than that she would have been hard-pressed to accept it at this point, because frankly she had good reason to know that he was not going to pull off a hat trick this time and she was, quite simply, tired of the nickname as well. Though he probably didn't even realize it, he masculinized her every time he said it (if she'd pointed it out he probably would have tried to contend that he was actually saying "Jewels," indicating that he treasured her, when it was in fact patently obvious from his pronunciation _and _intonation that he was saying nothing of the kind) just as he feminized Lassiter with continual application of the nickname "Lassie." _That _was probably only too intentional. "Have I ever told you how much the mere sight of you brightens my day?"

_Nice try, bucko, _she thought to herself, and her mental voice was a gruff approximation of Lassiter's. "Sit down, Shawn," she said out loud, and patted the weather-roughened wooden bench she sat upon.

"I talked to the Palo Alto Chief of Police today," she said casually, "to find out more about this job offer. They want my answer pretty quickly, as it turns out, so I have to make my decision now."

"Jules, you don't want to go to Palo Alto," Shawn said with a slight chuckle in his tone, the way he might speak to a slow but tolerated child in need of edification. "There's nothing there for you. _Santa Barbara_, man, that's the _big time_. Palo Alto is small potatoes."

Juliet nodded slowly, as though his words were well-considered. "Well, honestly, it might not even be an issue, because apparently people are calling up to tell them that I'm not right for the job, so they might decide to retract the offer."

Shawn feigned surprise and indignation, with an ease that hardly surprised her, though it did make her rather sad in spite of everything. "What? Who would dare? I bet it was Lassie - he doesn't want you to get ahead of him, Jules, and he'd do anything to sabotage your chances."

"It isn't Carlton who told me that there's nothing for me in Palo Alto, and it wasn't Carlton who called and told the Chief there that I was a miserable excuse for a detective, riding the coattails of superior investigators, and destined to make a thorough balls-up of any department I was put in charge of, Shawn, it was _you."_

A brief flicker of something deep in his dark hazel eyes was swiftly squashed and any further reaction to her accusation was purely what she would expect of an innocent. Really such a terrific liar, and the knowledge was heartbreaking even though she was well-begun at taking her heart back from the keeping of this unworthy man. Funnily enough, when she'd set this test for him she'd never expected him to so thoroughly flunk it before she even administered it to him, even though she had told the Palo Alto PD to record any calls they received about the supposed job offer for her to review. "Jules, that's not true. Okay, maybe it _wasn't_ Lassie - he's not smart enough to think of a way to sabotage you, I suppose - but _it wasn't me. _You have to believe that."

She shook her head sadly. "They recorded the call, Shawn. I recognize your fake Swedish accent and knew it was you the moment they played it for me. I admit it, I was stunned, Shawn, and very, very hurt. I knew you were self-absorbed but I never thought you cared so little for _me_ beyond my capacity as your second-favorite accessory after Gus that you'd actually stand in the way of my career. You were bound and determined to make me stay in Santa Barbara, regardless of what it cost me, and you wouldn't even consider for a moment the possibility that there could be a compromise we could reach. There's very little holding you in Santa Barbara, Shawn, and a hell of a lot drawing me to Palo Alto. You could have offered to come with me. You could have wished me well and kissed me goodbye. You could have congratulated me and offered a long-distance relationship. It's _Palo Alto, _Shawn, not really all that far away, and all you'd have to do is steal Gus's car and his credit card - something you have no trouble doing for your own purposes - and come visit me on weekends. But all you thought about was what _you_ wanted and needed, not what was best for _me_. So in the spirit of thinking for once about what is best for _me_, Shawn, I've decided that it's over. I used to think that the flippancy and narcissism were the armor you used to hide the more selfless side of you that broke through now and then, but now I think you occasionally try to hide your egomania beneath premeditated acts of apparent selflessness."

She stood up then, clutching her handbag in one hand and her keys in the other. "I'd love to have some great crushing one-liner to leave you on, Shawn, but everything boils down to just one all-consuming, all-important word: Goodbye."

The determination and finality of her tone wrought a minor miracle, leaving him stunned and speechless on the bench as she retreated to her car, and he was still sitting there when she put the Bug into gear and roared away. She drove in semi-aimless circles until she had her emotions under control again, and texted Carlton. The rapidity of his response told her that, although he'd left her no messages while she was _incommunicado_, he'd been awaiting word from her with some anticipation and, perhaps, no little trepidation.

_I'm free right now,_ his message said.

_Good. Take me out for dinner? I'm hungry, and we need to talk about Palo Alto._

_Sure. Where do you want to eat?_

She smiled at that. Shawn wouldn't have asked, but would instead have immediately popped out with some horrible and probably juvenile eatery he had a hankering for.

_I feel like curry tonight. You up for Asulya's?_ she texted, naming a restaurant she enjoyed but knew wasn't terribly high on Carlton's list of favorites.

_Sounds like a go to me. Meet you there in half an hour?_

_K. C U thr,_ she messaged back, a sudden burst of nerves caused her to fall back on the text abbreviations she almost never resorted to when messaging precise, by-the-rulebook Lassiter who invariably typed out every word despite the extra labor involved. So much hinged upon this meeting, and that simple, thoroughly expected response - "Sounds like a go to me," even though he probably would have preferred to eat elsewhere - and what she knew from her conspirators in Palo Alto told her that he was extremely likely to pass her test. It was what she'd hoped for when she set it, but it was frightening all the same, like climbing to the top of the high dive for the very first time and looking down, down, down into that blue clear water, knowing what a shock that cold plunge was likely to be, and knowing you were going to do it anyway in spite of how scary it was, and how far in over your head you were going to be.

She arrived at the restaurant in only ten minutes, and sat outside in her Beetle to wait for his arrival. When the black Ford Focus pulled into the lot she climbed out of the driver's seat even before he parked, and stood waiting for him while he found a spot and turned off the engine. When he rose over the small sea of gleaming metal roofs Juliet was nearly overwhelmed with a rush of simple affection and appreciation for the man. He'd clearly taken at least a moment to make himself out-in-public presentable, something Shawn always simply assumed he was regardless of how inappropriately he was dressed, and had clearly even taken the effort to ensure that even though it was his day off and casual wear was the order of the day that he was dressed nicely enough to look well in company with Juliet, in crisp dark jeans he'd probably ironed, a dark blue button-down shirt that complemented the tones of his skin, hair, and eyes with perfect harmony, and a plain but nicely-cut black blazer that emphasized both the breadth of his shoulders and the simple natural elegance and dignity of the silver in his hair. When he approached her she caught the scent of a brisk but not obnoxious aftershave that enhanced without concealing the underlying smell of freshly shaven and bathed _man_. And he hadn't done it to impress her or to in some way seduce her into staying, she was certain. He did it because he felt he owed it to her to look as good as possible in her company. He kept a brief but professional distance as he accompanied her into the restaurant, his face a study in mixed personal regrets and comradely congratulation.

"So, Head Detective, eh?" he ventured as the waiter left them to ponder their menus. "That's big."

"Yeah," she said, and the note of regret in her voice was both genuine and calculated. "I don't know that I want to go to Palo Alto, though. I feel like I've put down some real roots here in Santa Barbara over the years."

"I suppose it's hard to pull up stakes and go just like that," Lassiter said, with enough doubt in his voice to tell her that he'd never actually had to do it himself, "but moving to Santa Barbara from Miami was a hell of a lot bigger deal than moving to Palo Alto, right? You adjusted just fine to the way things are here, you can do it again."

"I can," Juliet agreed. "But the fact remains that I don't want to. I _wanted_ Santa Barbara, I was trying to get here for _years_, even before I took my detective's examination, and I pounced on the offer when it finally came. Palo Alto…just doesn't interest me, even though it is a good offer."

"Yes, but that was all because of Scott Seaver, wasn't it?" Lassiter asked, a quizzical set to his eyebrows. "Underneath the surface, at least."

"He's the reason I knew about Santa Barbara, yes, and the possibility of getting back together with him may have been a minor influence in my desire to come here, but ultimately it was the city I wanted, and now that I've got it I don't want to let it go. And I have better reasons than Scott Seaver, now, to stay."

Lassiter's expression darkened momentarily, and she knew as surely as if he'd said it aloud that he thought the better reasons she was referring to began and ended with Shawn Spencer. Then he made a visible effort to put those feelings aside. "Look, O'Hara - you're the only one who can make a decision like this for you, but if you want my two cents, and I have to suppose that to some extent you do or you wouldn't have wanted to talk with me about this, then all I can say is that this is one hell of a big opportunity you'd be turning down, and who knows when or even if it would be offered again. I was the youngest Head Detective in the history of the department, O'Hara, and I was three years older - and _four _years longer on the squad - than you when I got the promotion. Given your age, your relative paucity of years in the field, and, though it shouldn't still be so in this day and age, your _gender_, the fact that you've been given this opportunity is a tremendous honor and speaks to just how well you've acquitted yourself in this department in the time you've been here. And I'll just say that, regardless of what your ultimate decision is, and regardless of the fact that the bones of the detective you are were pretty much set before you ever came to work with me and I had next to nothing to do with how good at your job you are, I am so un-be-god-damned-lievably proud of you right now that I just might explode." And the ferocity of his words and prideful expression told her that this was nothing more nor less than the utter truth. She was struck with a brief twinge of conscience for deceiving him into what had to be a costly admission, but repressed it to deal with later.

"Shawn doesn't want me to go," Juliet said. Livid color flooded Lassiter's face, but his voice was deadly calm and even when he responded.

"I will refrain from comment, O'Hara, because I vowed to myself to keep my nose out of that aspect of your life from now on. Like I said, the decision is _yours alone." _The emphasis he placed on the last two words was all the verbal criticism of Shawn he'd allow himself.

Juliet nodded. "I called Palo Alto today, to hear more about the job before I made my decision. It turns out they received a couple of very interesting phone calls about me yesterday. They recorded them so I could hear."

The angry color faded out of his cheeks, replaced by a flush of embarrassment. "O'Hara, I - "

She cut him off. "I want you to hear one of the calls," she said, "but first I need you to promise me - _promise me_, upon every ounce of honor you possess as a gentleman and an officer of the law - that you will do _nothing_ about what you hear. Promise?"

He swallowed hard and nodded slowly. "I promise, O'Hara."

She placed her iPhone on the tabletop and played the recording. A nasal, false Swedish voice, disturbingly familiar, launched into a rapid-fire litany of her ills as a detective and human being. A look of utter disbelief on his face was slowly, steadily replaced by one of rising bile and animal rage, and when the voice accused her of criminal misconduct with regards to the withholding of evidence on certain cases - withholding Lassiter was morally certain _had_ taken place, but with a very different culprit behind it - he stood up from his chair so quickly that he knocked it over. In a strangled voice he excused himself and stalked at cheetah speed to the men's room. Juliet turned off the recording and sat quietly, only mildly worried that he was in the process of breaking his word. She was fairly sure that he was only wrangling himself back under control, not wringing the neck of her erstwhile boyfriend.

He returned some minutes later, damp of hair and collar but considerably calmer, though there was a brittleness to that calm she didn't care to break.

"If I had known what I was going to hear, O'Hara," he spoke in slow, measured tones, biting each word off curtly, "I would not have given you my word to do nothing."

"That's why I didn't tell you what you'd hear," Juliet admitted. "But you _gave_ your word, Carlton, and I'm holding you to it. Shawn and I are finished. Nothing you can do to him will change that, or what he did, and I will not have _you_ getting in trouble over the actions of a spoiled man-child."

He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, and a good deal of his residual anger and the fragility of his calm dissipated with it. "Okay, you broke up with Spencer. Does that mean I'm allowed to tell you that he's a complete and utter ass wipe who never, for one iota of a second, deserved you?"

She laughed lightly. "You're allowed to tell me that. And well within your rights to say 'I told you so.'"

He shook his head. "If anything, the way I am probably pushed you his direction," he said ruefully. "Spencer must have seemed like the perfect antidote to a daily overdose of Carlton Lassiter."

She reached across the table and clasped one of his loosely fisted hands that rested on the tabletop. "It's the reverse, you know. _You're _the antidote to an overdose of Shawn Spencer."

He blushed, stammered, tugged at the collar of his shirt, and looked anywhere but directly at her.

"There's something else I wanted you to hear, Carlton," Juliet said. She pushed the play button on the second recording. "The other phone call."

He listened with downcast eyes and a blush on his cheeks as his own voice - name freely given - issued from the little smartphone speaker as he first asked about the offered position, receiving in reply the assurance that yes, it was a legitimate offer, and then the list of Juliet's accomplishments and qualifications, none of them falsified, that went into the supposed decision to offer her the job. And then the voice of the Chief asked _him_ a question - "Do _you_ think Detective O'Hara would be an asset to the Palo Alto detectives bureau?" And then his own voice returned with the answer he had given.

"_In the years she has been in Santa Barbara Detective O'Hara has made herself invaluable to our department, and to me, personally. I have had excellent partners in the past, but never have I teamed with an officer whose intellect, judgment, and guts I have trusted in the way I trust Juliet O'Hara's. I confess to you that I am loathe to lose her, but you can take my word that you won't do better than she to head up your department. She is young, aggressive, adaptable, and has the best qualities of leadership I have ever seen. Far better than my own, in fact."_

Juliet cut off the recording at that point, curtailing the Chief's more than half-awed words of thanks. She watched him writhe on the end of her hook for a moment, and then took pity on him.

"There is no job in Palo Alto," she confessed. "Chief Vick and I set it up with the Chief there as a test, because I needed to know how you and Shawn would both react to the news that I was bound to leave Santa Barbara. I lied to you."

He looked up at that, his eyes caught somewhere between hurt and relief. The torture of the conflicting emotions told in his voice when he spoke. "Why would you _do_ that?"

"To be completely honest, I had no really good reason to put _you_ through it, and for that I owe you a massive apology. But you see, I felt I had no choice but to deceive Shawn, to coerce an honest, unvarnished reaction from him for once, and I succeeded at that far better than I could have imagined. I expected him to call Palo Alto - _both_ of you to call - but I never thought for a moment that either of you would be more than suspicious of this offer. And because I wanted to know for certain that you were the better man, I lied to you, too, even though I think I didn't need to deceive you in order to hear how you really felt about me. Had I simply asked whether you believed I had it in me to assume the responsibilities of your position I'm fairly certain you would have told me exactly what I heard today, although perhaps not at such length. What I really needed to know was whether you cared enough for me to take what was best for me into consideration, and you proved it. What I did was terribly unfair to you, but keeping you both in the dark made it balanced, so I hope you can forgive me."

He sat silent for a moment, then met her eyes and said, "I wish I was as confident as you that I would have had the guts to tell you how good you really are without the lie, O'Hara, but yes, I forgive you."

She smiled. "Thank you for that, Carlton. And since you do, I want to ask you one further question."

He raised a brow. "Yes?"

"Would you go out with me, Saturday night?"

He blinked several times in rapid succession. "Out? Like, _out_ out?"

"Out, Carlton. Like, _date _out. And just so you know, Chief Vick knows I was going to ask you and she's totally okay with it."

"Why would you want to go out with _me?"_

She grinned at the confusion on his face and laughed. "Because I like blueberry muffins."

**FIN**


End file.
